1. Field of the Invention
The invention refers to a hand winch which comprises a wind roll for winding off and up a flexible elongated member, as a belt, a band, a cable or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Usually, the hand winch comprises an operation shaft engaged with said wind roll for transmitting manual operation forces between the wind roll and the operation shaft. Further, hand winches can comprise a friction brake so that an operating person does not need to hold high load forces when letting down boats or other heavy items. A known friction brake can be activated by screwing a crank handle onto the operation shaft and thereby a gear member, being in a gear wheel connection with the winding roll, comes into a friction contact with a stationary member which may be rigidly connected to the operation shaft.
Such a hand winch suffers from the problem that the friction brake is to be deactivated by demounting the crank handle in order to unwind the elongated member in no load condition. Further, without the crank handle mounted, the brake system is not in an active operation mode. Therefore, the known hand winch implies security problems for operating persons. For instance, if accidentally the crank handle is demounted from the operation shaft, the friction brake is deactivated such that the load may wind off the elongated member “non-brakedly”. Further, if the crank handle is only unfastened beyond the thread slightly so that a friction contact between the gear member and the stational member cannot be built up, so that no brake is active and the load accelerated without contact, the load applied to the elongated member still drives the wind roll which makes the operation shaft holding the loosened crank handle to turn which may injure the operation person.
It is an object of the invention to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art, particularly to provide a new hand winch which is improved with respect to more secure handling.